1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to inventory devices and methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
Identifying and locating devices within a company can be a time consuming, expensive task. For example, inventorying physical networking assets includes not only the identification of the manufacturer, model number, and serial number of chassis based devices, but also the identification of the internal components, such as modules, blades, and/or daughter boards within those devices. For more complex devices that may include many components, the same device may have many permutations of component numbers and types. It is common for components to be removed from one device and put into another device, e.g., in order to respond quickly to a customer's need for a particular combination of device components.
If one or more components have been removed from a device, they may or may not be replaced. If the components are replaced, the replacements may be improperly configured, may be incompatible with other components, etc. Further challenges are introduced when a customer returns a device to a company. For example, the customer may have removed a more expensive component and replaced it with a cheaper one. Keeping track of all such changes has proven to be very challenging. It would be desirable to address at least some of these shortcomings of the prior art.